


Do You Really Want to Hurt Me

by aewriting



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Anatomy, Angst, M/M, Michael Guerin Week 2019, References to Sex, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 14:14:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20743538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewriting/pseuds/aewriting
Summary: Two variations on the theme of Michael and Alex's last interaction before his third deployment.***Day 6 of Michael Guerin Week: Pre-canon and/or "the lost decade"





	1. Precious kisses words that burn me

**Author's Note:**

> These are two separate possibilities of how the final encounter went down before Alex left for Iraq, in two separate chapters.

“Every time, Guerin, every fucking time…” Alex is muttering. Minutes ago, _minutes_, Michael’d been buried inside him, close as two people (er, _beings_?) could be, as they’d shuddered through their release together, grasped each other hard enough to bruise, said with their bodies what they’d _never _been able to say with words.

“This is my third deployment. You know how this goes. You, you _know _I have to leave.” Alex shakes his head in frustration. “It’s…” Alex bites his already-swollen lip, “it’s already hard. Why do you _always _make it harder?” He suddenly glares at Michael. “I belong to the Air Force, Guerin. This?” he says, gesturing to his naked body, so obviously freshly fucked. “All of this?” His eyes are dark, glinting. “Is property of the U.S. government. All of it. I _have _to go, Guerin. I have to.”

Michael _could _be sweet right now, at least a little. He could give Alex what he thinks he might want – an embrace, a hand through his hair, a lingering kiss, a tearful but brave goodbye.

Alex is going to get none of those things.

“Property of the U.S. government, eh?” Michael says shortly, tightly. “Well _fuck _the U.S. government.”

“Michael…”

“It’s what I just did to you, isn’t it? Fucked you. Fucked you right in your ass. Pretty goddamn hard, too.”

Alex’s jaw clenches and he looks away.

“_You _liked it,” Michael says with a stupid little shrug. “Wanted more. Maybe the goddamn government will, too.”

Alex’s hand is making a fist. “You’re such an asshole.” He’s shaking. “Such a _fucking _asshole.” He can’t look at Michael, eyes keep darting away, everywhere else, blinking too fast, and that’s how Michael knows he’s crying.

Michael watches Alex’s technique, watches as he breathes in and out through his mouth, puts his hand up by his temple so Michael can’t see his eyes, can’t see the tears.

“I’m leaving,” Alex says tightly, steady as he can muster, but his voice still betrays him. He’s gathering up his clothes, putting them on hurriedly, haphazardly.

“Yeah, well, enjoy your trip. See you next time you’re in town and need to get off.”

“Get off? Get _off?_” Alex slams his fist down onto his own thigh, makes a low, distressed sound as he does it. “God _damn _it, Michael, do you seriously think that’s why I come back here?”

“Well, I guess you fuck _and _you run. Gotta get that conditioning in…”

“_God, _fuck you!” Alex suddenly goes still, and his eyes take on a calculating look. “If all I cared about was getting off, like you say, why the _fuck _would I come to Roswell?”

“To hop on my dick and hop right back off, same as you always do,” Michael says, but he’s a little less confident now, a little concerned about what’s coming.

Alex laughs a little. A chill goes down Michael’s back. “No, no… see, Guerin, if you would ever leave this fucking town, you’d know… you’d know that right now, if I wanted to? I'd go to San Francisco. Miami. New York, maybe. And I’d get a cheap hotel. And I’d stand in front of a mirror, and I’d take a picture of my face, my ass, and my dick.” Alex raises his eyebrows. “You’ve see them. If all I wanted to do was _get off,_” Michael suddenly hates how Alex is enunciating those words, “I’d use an app. I’d use an app, and those three pictures, and I guarantee you, Michael, I could be fucking for days.” Alex looks at him challengingly. “You _know _it’s true.”

Michael, for the first time since this fight started, is quiet.

“I don’t come to Roswell to fucking _get off. _I… I come here for _you_, Michael. I come here to see you.”

Again, if Michael was a softer person, a better person…

But he’s not.

“Well maybe you shouldn’t.” Alex’s face crumples. “Maybe this time, you should just stay away. I’m sure you’ll be sick of deserts by the time you get back.” Michael grins meanly. “Or you know what? Maybe _I’ll _leave. Maybe while you’re gone, I’ll be the one to visit one of those _nice _cities you were talking about.” Michael stands up, fully nude, towering over Alex in the cramped Airstream. “Take some pictures of _my _dick,” he gestures to it, “_my _ass and just fuck it out, what do you say?”

“If _that’s _what it took to get you out of here, Michael, then I wish you would!” Alex spits out. “I wish you _fucking _would!”

Michael laughs and shakes his head. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” Alex says, desperation in his voice. He suddenly grasps both of Michael’s hands and pulls him back down to the bed. “You are wasting your life here, Guerin. Your brain, your… everything. I… I hope you’re gone when I get back. I hope you are.”

It takes some of the fight out of Michael. He just watches as Alex finishes dressing and stands up.

Alex’s head is tilted, like he’s studying Michael. His voice comes out soft and vulnerable. “I don’t even know what to say after that.”

If Michael was nicer, he’d say he was sorry. He’d stand up, hold Alex close.

Tell him he loves him.

Michael just shrugs. “Stick to what you’re good at and say goodbye.”

Alex doesn’t say a word as he slams the door.


	2. Give me time to realize my crime

He’s thinking about it. He’s actually, seriously thinking about it.

It… it wouldn’t be hard. It would be a little too, easy, actually. _Way _too easy right now…

God, let’s see… there’s the tibia and the fibula, Michael knows those ones. But those are big ones. Like, if you get those wrong, that could be pretty fucking serious.

Dammit, what are the little ones? In the foot? There’s a group of them. Tarsus? No, that’s Star Trek. Tardis? Fuck, that's Doctor Who.

Who’s he kidding? Even if he could name them, he can’t picture them, and that’s the important part.

If Michael cares enough to learn something, he fucking _learns _it. He will put in the time, the effort, study the shit out of it, and then his brain generally does the rest. He retains information better than humans. He retains information better than Max and Isobel_, _for that matter. He doesn’t know why he’s this way; it’s just one item of many about his alien heritage that's a big fucking question mark.

But he’s never cared about the human foot before.

There’s no time to look it up. He doesn’t have one of those fancy phones anyway, the kind that connect to the internet. He’s sure Izzy would buy him one if he asked, probably put him on her own fucking plan, but…

Focus, dammit, there’s no _time_…

Christ, what is he doing?

This is _Alex. _Alex, who he loves, and he’s really sitting here seriously contemplating the best way to break his fucking foot?

But…

But wouldn’t he be doing him a favor? He’s supposed to leave Roswell in a few hours, deploy to Iraq within the next few days. If he was injured, had to miss his tour... well, wouldn’t that be a kindness, really? Here in the desert, the ground is so uneven. Easy to take a wrong step, trip on a rock…

Fuck, but there was that damn book… what was it? Mrs. Foster’s 9th grade English class. _A Separate Peace. _With the fuckin’ prep school kids and the boy, Phineas, with the little piece of bone marrow that floats around in his bloodstream and stops his heart.

God, if he got something wrong, with Alex, if a little bit of marrow escaped…

Or if he miscalculated with the telekinesis, even a smidge, and ended up doing real damage to Alex’s foot, to tendons or nerves…

He couldn’t live with it, couldn’t forgive himself.

And now Alex is in his car anyway, avoiding eye contact, still angry with Michael, and pulling away in a cloud of dust, about to trade one desert for another.

***

Months later, after the news finally reaches the Pony, Michael’s in the desert, alone, sobbing, half-crazed with grief and regret. Drunk off his ass on a potent cocktail of acetone and cheap vodka.

And out of nowhere, there’s Mrs. Foster’s 9th grade English class again. They were learning about irony. Three kinds, Michael remembers: verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony.

Situational irony’s the real bitch here, isn’t it? The difference between what’s expected to happen, and what actually happens.

Like when Guy #1 decides not to break Guy #2’s foot, which allows Guy #2 to go into a fucking war zone and get his whole damn leg blasted off.

***

There are 26 bones in the human foot. Michael knows them all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Fic title and chapter titles are from "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," by Culture Club.


End file.
